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According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than 28 million people currently unemployed — that’s including those involuntarily working part-time and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one.

In the face of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression, millions of Americans are hurting. “The Decline: The Geography of a Recession” is a vivid representation of just how much. It’s an interactive map I created as a graduate student at American University, Washington, D.C. Watch the deteriorating transformation of the U.S. economy from January 2007 — approximately one year before the start of the recession — to the most recent unemployment data available today.

They are the former lawyers now forced to work part-time behind the McDonald’s food counter. They are the once successful, award-winning journalists that have been out of a job so long, they’re convinced they’ll never get back to work.

If you only listen to mainstream media reports, you might not realize just how many of these workers actually exist. Furthermore, just how bad the current economic situation really is.

The latest jobless calculations for the month of March show the ranks of these special employment groups are well over 11 million. Yet, they are not included in the official monthly unemployment reports put out by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

While the BLS’ most recent unemployment report shows 15 million Americans out of work and an unemployment rate of 9.7 percent, Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, said the actual unemployment rate is far higher.

“The [9.7 percent] unemployment rate measures the share of people who are actively seeking work,” explained Shierholz. “That number does not include other people that are also being directly impacted by the downturn, like the marginally-attached and the involuntary part-timers. When you add in these other groups, you get a much larger chunk of the U.S. workforce. You get up to 16.9 percent unemployment and 26.4 million people out of work. That’s basically 1 in 6 U.S. workers.”

Shierholz explained “marginally-attached” workers meet certain criteria: “You are jobless. You want a job. You are available to work. You’ve looked for work in the last year, but you’re not currently actively looking.”

Within the “marginally-attached” is a sub-category of “discouraged workers.” “They’ve just stopped actively seeking work,” said Shierholz. “They’ve knocked on every door in their town 45 times, and they’re just not going to go back until things start to turn up a little bit.”

Norm Elrod, of Queens, N.Y., is what economists refer to as “involuntary part-time” or “underemployed.” The 38-year-old has been out of full-time work — living below his standard of living and level of education — since October 2008.

Elrod has been laid off three times in as many years — four times going all the way back to 2000.

“The company had to layoff 20 to 25 percent of its staff,” recalled the former marketing manager and MBA graduate. “I was one of them. They called me in one day and they let me go. I thought ‘Oh my God, this is happening again.’ ”

Elrod said he spent months attempting to find work — only to find there wasn’t much work to be found. “After three to four months, two interviews and a few callbacks — everything to no progress — I pretty much realized that it wasn’t going to happen.”

In order to make ends meet for himself and his working wife — no kids — the former businessman has been forced to work part-time as a marketing freelancer. According to him, gigs have been few and far between. He’s on payroll at the moment, but come May, the well-educated, experienced marketing professional will be back on unemployment. His freelance gig is slated to end. Only then will he be included in the official monthly unemployment survey.

Elrod said the uncertainty of unemployment can be daunting. He said he understands why millions of unemployed Americans have become “discouraged.”

“Unemployment now is a very different world than back in the Great Depression, for example,” he explained. “Then, how did you find a job? You went outside. You went from store-to-store or business-to-business. You lined up at the unemployment office. You lined up to get food. You were out there with everybody else.

“Job searching now for a lot of people is sitting at home and sending out resumes online. A lot of people are doing it, but a lot of people are doing it alone. You can see on the news that the unemployment rate is 10 percent, or this many hundreds of thousands of people have been laid off, or this many jobs have been lost — but all you know is that you’re unemployed and you’re in your apartment alone.”

Shierholz estimated there are approximately 5.5 unemployed workers for every available job.

She said the U.S. has lost a total of 8.2 million jobs since the start of this recession in December 2007. And it’ll take the creation of more than 100,000 new jobs per month before the nation returns to full employment. The economist predicts the earliest that’ll happen is 2015.

Until then, Elrod takes the work as it comes. To counter the idleness, the former worker started a blog entitled “Jobless and Less: A Blog for the Employmentally Challenged,” where he talks about his experiences with layoffs, unemployment and the job search. He says the blog was part therapy and part a marketing exercise to teach himself about various aspects of online marketing (i.e. website development and management, search engine optimization, social marketing, etc.) during his career break. He said he hopes it will help distinguish him from the competition.

Like 26.4 million other Americans, he lives one day at a time hoping for that one big break.

“I don’t need to be rich,” he said. “I don’t need to be famous. I just want to be able to support myself. I want to be able to provide for my household…I don’t feel entitled to any of these things. I just want the opportunity.”

Over the last few months, “Geography of a Recession” has been featured on CNN, ABC, a number of local television news stations, boingboing, hundreds of blogs, listservs and a number of labor union websites, including my own. The map has surpassed a million hits from around the world. Requests for special permission to include the graphic in various presentations are coming in by the dozens. And despite my five years in television news and documentaries, my daughter has officially dubbed me “cool.”

But, the best part of it all has been the hundreds of personal messages I have received from unemployed workers themselves. When I first sat down to complete this project, I knew the story I wanted to tell, but I had no idea the map would touch so many people the way it has. Thanks to everyone for the great comments, suggestions and emails. I want you to know I do read all your messages (yes, even the mean nasty ones), although the sheer magnitude + home + school + work has made it nearly impossible to reply to them all.

The most important part is that the conversation regarding our country’s current jobs crisis has started. Folks in Washington, though still a bit groggy, are finally waking up to the issues that many have been dealing with for quite some time now: a lack of good, well-paying jobs, quality benefits and an equal shot at achieving the American Dream. The creation of a comprehensive jobs bill is underway, though I cannot stress enough the need for speed, and hopefully its final passage is only the start of a series of pro-middle-class bills to come.

Only time will tell how this story ends.

In the meantime, I’ve rededicated myself to posting at least once a month. And since this is an election year, I’m sure there will be plenty to talk about. Stay tuned!

Watch Is Decrease in Job Loss a Good Sign? – ABC News.

***VIDEO TAKES 25 SEC. TO APPEAR***

Creator of interactive unemployment map, “The Decline: The Geography of a Recession,” LaToya Egwuekwe talks with CNN Your $$$ host Christine Roman.

Mass job losses, lost income, default mortgages and shrunken savings have a lot of people tightening their budgets. But does that mean your wardrobe has to suffer, too? Of course not!  At least not until you’ve tried shopping second hand. Take a look!

Photo: somenoise/Flickr.com

As a journalist, I’ve covered my share of uncomfortable stories. I’ve interviewed families of murder victims, rape victims, human trafficking victims, recovering drug addicts, gang members, etc. The look of despair and hopelessness in their eyes was always unsettling. Oftentimes, I carried their stories home. Many of them remain with me today. Stories like that are pretty hard to let go.

So, when my boss asked me back in April to fly to Wichita, KS, to cover a story about some 2,000 (yes, 2,000!) people being laid off from a local aerospace company, I thought I was more than prepared for what I was about to see and hear. Turns out, I wasn’t.

The tears. The long, empty stares. The questions of “what am I going to do now?” The stories of having just had a brand new baby. A brand new mortgage. Having to deal with a chronic illness with no health insurance. Though – at the individual level – no where near as tragic as death or being the victim of a heinous crime. Those are permanent. I have to say, however, collectively, for me, the overall sense of despair and widespread feeling of hopelessness was almost just as unsettling.

“Wichita is to aerospace what Flint, MI, is to the auto industry,” said one of my co-workers. When nearly the entire city either works in or is dependant upon a single industry, mass layoffs have the potential of decimating the entire community. Parents don’t know how they’re going to feed their children. Local businesses have fewer customers. And, with a smaller tax base communities begin to cripple.

Indeed, the emotions I was witnessing are not in isolation. As the unemployment rate races full speed ahead towards double digits, some 30.2 million people – including those involuntarily working part-time and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one – are struggling to come to terms with the idea of not working. Not being able to provide for their family. Feeling as if they have no “purpose” for getting out of bed each morning.

Suicides and domestic-violence, according to LiveScience.com, are on the rise. “Freddie Mac CFO Said to Have Committed Suicide”…  “L.A. Man Upset Over Lost Job Kills Wife, 5 Kids, Himself”…  “In Notes Left in Family’s Killings, Md. Man Details Debts, Depression”… are just some of the most recent headlines, to name a few.

“I expect an increase in such incidents over the next few years,” said Sampson Blair, a sociologist at University of Buffalo, “because economic strain on families provokes depression and desperation.”

“I think certainly when people are stressed out, overwhelmed, feeling pressured,” says Washington, D.C., family and relationship therapist and best-selling author Dr. Audrey B. Chapman, “and then you have pressure at home from family members, worried about being able to feed your children, keep a roof over their heads, and that kind of stuff… You start to feel like ‘What’s the point?’”

The bottom line is: going from employed to unemployed can be a huge change for many people. And, change can sometimes be hard.

Dr. Judith Rich, a teacher in the field of transformation and consciousness, put it best in her article “When the Shift Hits the Fan,” when she quoted author Marilyn Ferguson:

It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear…It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.

In her own words, Rich goes on to say, “Talk about being in between trapezes! We can’t even see if there’s another one coming our way. You know that feeling when your stomach suddenly takes up residency in your throat? I think the term for this sensation is ‘free fall’. We’re there.” (NOTE: This is an awesome article! Please read it, and pass it along to your friends and loved ones.)

Photo: kristiewells/Flickr.com

So, what do we do now?

Because I’m no expert, I’m going to, again, defer to Dr. Rich’s article and highlight just a few of her thoughts I thought were on point (Again, please, please do yourself a favor by reading the article in its entirety. This blog entry doesn’t come close to doing it justice). Dr. Rich says:

“We’re confronting change on a scale that is beyond anything we’ve ever learned to comprehend, much less believe in… The key is not to try to hold on to what was, but to learn how to fly with what is. Get used to being uncomfortable. And then re-invent yourself. There will be people who will learn to thrive in the difficult times ahead. Why not you?

“The only way out is through. Being a human being on planet Earth in 2009 is not for the feint of heart!

“If you’ve always identified yourself as the work you do or where you live or the size of your bank balance and those things are suddenly ripped away, who are you now? Here’s an opportunity to reframe who you are and how you see yourself.

“Don’t be afraid to fail. If you don’t have at least one failure under your belt, it means you’ve played too small, stayed too comfortable and never dared to color outside the lines. Now’s a great time to get your feet wet! We’re all out here searching for new ways to navigate this slippery terrain together.”

(Photo: www.mental-emotionalhealth.com)

It was the morning of October 2, 2007, two days after my son, Izaiah, was born. I was lying in my hospital bed. Izaiah was lying beside me in his plastic see-through crib. And, there the nurse stood with a pen and clipboard at the foot of the bed, spouting out a series of questions – a to-do list of last minute consultations and examinations needed before Izaiah and I could be discharged later that evening.

To her, it was simply routine. She would ask a question. I would answer. She would make a down-and-up check motion with the pen onto the clipboard.

The Q & A lasted for about five minutes.

“Did you sign the birth certificate?”

“Yes.”

Check.

“Did the lactation nurse come by to see you?”

“Yes.”

Check.

“Do you have any questions or concerns about the baby?”

“No.”

Check.

“The pediatrician will be in one last time to take a look at him. Would you like for the doctor to go ahead and give him his first Hepatitis B shot?”

I thought it was odd that a two-day-old child would need a Hep shot. I remember trying to quickly shuffle my brain and remember if my daughter, McKenzie, received one when she was born. Not being able to recall, I then reminded myself that I was in a new state, and every state has its own set of rules. Plus, it had been nearly five years since I’d had McKenzie– things change. Furthermore, I had a brand spanking new baby. Why wouldn’t I vaccinate him? For goodness sake, I didn’t want my child to get sick!

“Uhhh… sure,” I replied.

Check.

Fast forwarding to two months later… I was in the pediatrician’s office for Izaiah’s first Well-Baby exam. After checking his vitals, the nurse then informed me that he would be receiving four more shots (plus some kind of oral medicine) as part of his first round of vaccinations.

I gawked.

“Are you telling me you’re going to have to stick my son FOUR times? He’s only two-months-old! He can’t handle that!” I said.

She replied, “That’s the dosage mandated by state law.”

As I sat listening to my son screaming to the point where his mouth was still open, but nothing was coming out  – the entire time his confused eyes searching my face for any sign of relief, but to no avail – I felt my heart breaking into a million pieces.

After the nurse finished and I finally got Izaiah calmed down, I asked her how many shots would he need at his next visit. She said six!

I was livid.

But, it was something I had to do, right? Again, I didn’t want my baby to get sick. Isn’t it my job to protect him? (At this point, I should probably note that from that moment on I refused to take Izaiah back to the doctor’s office for his shots. Till this day, all his doctor’s appointments are handled by his father.)

Still not able to get the horrible scene out of my head, for weeks it seemed as if everywhere I turned the subject kept coming up. From the news to magazine covers, I just kept hearing and reading the same words: “childhood vaccinations… immunizations… newborn screenings.” And, all too often the words were coupled with one other word: “autism.” After hearing it so many times, I eventually started to pay attention.

I did a bit of research and found out that 1 out of every 150 people are diagnosed with autism, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. It occurs in all racial, ethnic, and social groups and is four times more likely to strike boys than girls.

I also found that many parents of autistic children believe their child developed the disorder from vaccines required by most states.

I immediately went on guard, watching Izaiah’s every move, checking his habits against an assortment of milestone charts I found in baby books and online. “Is he walking?… Why isn’t he talking yet?… Hmmm, that other kid looks bigger!… Wasn’t McKenzie crawling by now?”

I still do it.

Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy and Evan at the 2008 Green Our Vaccines rally in Washington, D.C. (Photo: www.celebtots.com)

Just recently I came across a Huffington Post article written by actor/comedian Jim Carrey (Let me just note that I’ve never been a huge fan of Carrey’s. I used to always joke that I didn’t think the man could be serious if his life depended on it. Turns out, he can). As many of you might already know, Carrey is dating actress/comedienne Jenny McCarthy. McCarthy’s son, Evan, was diagnosed with autism at two-and-a-half-years-old. Both McCarthy and Carrey are strong advocates and supporters of research and treatments for the disorder. They, too, believe there is a direct link between autism and childhood vaccines.

In his article, Carrey writes:

“The anecdotal evidence of millions of parents who’ve seen their totally normal kids regress into sickness and mental isolation after a trip to the pediatrician’s office must be seriously considered. The legitimate concern they and many in the scientific community have that environmental toxins, including those found in vaccines, may be causing autism and other disorders (Aspergers, ADD, ADHD), cannot be dissuaded by a show of sympathy and a friendly invitation to look for the ‘real’ cause of autism anywhere but within the lucrative vaccine program.

“In a world left reeling from the catastrophic effects of greed, mismanagement and corporate insensitivity, is it so absurd for us to wonder why American children are being given twice as many vaccines on average, compared to the top 30 first world countries?

“With all the doubt that’s left hanging on this topic, how can anyone in the media or medical profession, boldly demand that all parents march out and give their kids 36 of these shots, six at a time in dosage levels equal to that given a 200 pound man?”

Carrey demands U.S. leaders take a hard look at each of the required vaccines, seriously consider which ones are actually necessary and how much,  as well as make them green – free from toxins like aluminum, mercury, ether, formaldehyde and anti-freeze.

While, I am no expert on autism, nor do I have the slightest clue about vaccines and what’s in them– I am a mother. And as a mother, I have to say I am concerned. I am concerned by the sheer number of vaccines our children must receive, the dosage, as well as the safeness of such medications.

While I have not seen any cause for alarm in my son – who is current on all his immunizations – I can’t help but wonder… “Should I opt out of vaccinating my children?”

Everybody and their mother is talking about “going green” as if its the latest trend on some fashion runway (In some cases, it is. Even so, I think it’s becoming somewhat commercialized and more of the “in” thing to do and say, rather than actually trying to save the environment. But anyway, that’s for a later post). If there is, in fact, a way to make our drugs safer, shouldn’t lawmakers at least consider it?

At this time, the research is inconclusive. And, so am I.

However, if you are a parent or soon-to-be parent of small children, I encourage you to read Carrey’s full article.

I’d also love to know what you think…

After seven months of shopping resumes, networking, and combing the web, Mathews has finally landed a job! She’s the new Marketing Communications Manager for a public relations software management company.

“A telling moment for me is when I realized that all but one of my pool of five references is out of work,” she says. “My new job opportunity could not have come at a better time since I was on my last unemployment check. I had actually started on the ‘emergency’ benefits. As we say in the Baptist church, ‘He’s an ON TIME God, Yes He is!’”

You can read all about Mathews’ seven month journey, as well as get some tips on how she made it out the unemployment sinkhole, by reading her blog here.

(Photo: jenn_jenn/Flickr.com)

Are you out of work? Laid off? Or worse, fired (these days most employers don’t even need a reason)? If so, my prayers are with you.

If not, then you’d better get down on your knees and start praying for yourself! For every day we wake up with an office to scurry to is a blessing.

New unemployment numbers from the Department of Labor released today show 651,000 jobs were lost just last month, bringing today’s unemployment rate to 8.1 percent.

While dismal enough, unfortunately the situation is actually far worse. What many fail to realize is that the unemployment rate is the percentage of the total labor force that is unemployed but actively seeking employment. It does not include the millions of people that have lost their jobs and now forced to work part-time. Nor does it include the millions of people who are, indeed, unemployed, but, for whatever reason, have given up on trying to find a job. When you throw in those numbers – 8.6 million part-timers and  2.1 million discouraged workers, according to the labor department – you get a total of 23.2 million people out of work!

Economists predict the current rate of job loss will continue for at least a few more months until the effects of the president’s $800 billion economic stimulus package can even begin to be felt.

But, if we learned anything from the Katrina tragedy, if you’re waiting on the government to bail you out or throw you some kind of financial life jacket, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt.

The truth is everyone can say, with some degree of certainty, that things will get worse – but no one actually knows how much worse. My advice: don’t wait around to see.

Start preparing yourself for the “what if…” right now. Even if you’re like me, and don’t have a lot of money – and certainly not a lot tied up in stocks and bonds and things like that – there are quite a few things us average, everyday people can do to protect ourselves and families.

Here are some helpful links  on how…

• 25 tips for hard times The Toronto Star (This is my favorite. Most practical.)
• Preparing for a recession wisebread.com
• Tips for surviving a recession The San Francisco Chronicle